Rod Stewart - Every Picture Tells A Story
Rod the Mod finds his solo footing, headed for stardom, with the Faces in his wake.
6:00 AM GMT 22/06/2011
Features Disc of the day
Various
The American Song Poem Anthology
(Bar/None, 2003)
Musical vanity publishing venture generates glorious weirdness.
Here’s an exciting business model the beleaguered majors might want to revisit; advertise in mags for members of the public – you know, binmen, dinner ladies, mental patients – to send you £££’s in exchange for setting any lyrics they’ve written however banal or unhinged to music, all the while suggesting that chart fame and wealth could follow. This was the slick trick as practised by the US ‘Song-Poem’ industry in the ’60s and ’70s, when crack teams of musos-for-hire would conveyer belt as many as thirty of these submissions a day (various styles) before sending back a few copies to the blindly hopeful mugs who paid up. While sense says most of the results were merely awful, sometimes the transaction smashed together the super-weird and the hyper-normal and created a kind of anti-matter X Factor, with astounding consequences. This comp cherrypicks from a series of Song Poem collections, with a payback similar to a yucksome found photograph or shopping list. Among the terrible-yet-essential inclusions are tunes explaining why a good imagination is better than pornography (All You Need Is A Fertile Mind), a soul shaker about being in hospital (City Hospital Patients) and a jazzily sauntering salute to America’s lunar missions, The Moon Men (“This cut is close to perfection,” says Ex-Germs drummer and Song-Poem gourmet Don Bolles). Elsewhere Rodd Keith, the Phil Spector of Song-Poems, gives form to the sublime acid trip travelogue Ecstacy To Frenzy (sic) and the bumping, grinding Beat Of The Traps, wherein drum kits are eroticised. Whatever zone the song-poem auteur entered, Keith was totally there. His other works here include a song where he pretends to be a woman (I’m Just The Other Woman) and singing a cod-dignified patriotic song in praise of Richard Nixon. An extra glow of pleasure comes with the knowledge that none of these unique works would have existed had not their writers chanced the dough to have them made – thanks a lot John M Kurzawa, Mary Clignett, Dom Betro and the rest. It’s enough to leave you wondering if jazz really was the only original American art form.
Ian Harrison
Posted by Ross_Bennett at 6:00 AM GMT 17/12/2008
Further Listening
The Shaggs – Philosophy Of The World (Third Word, 1969)
The Langley Schools Music Project – Innocence And Despair (Bar/None, 2001)
Kenneth Higney – Attic Demonstration (Kebrutney, 1976)
Previous Disc of the day
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-
Earl Brutus - Larky
Last salvo of Ginsters Pasty-Warholism from Britpop ramraiders.
12:04 PM GMT 08/06/2011
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Loudon Wainwright - T-Shirt
An overlooked small wonder from an unpredictable career.
6:00 AM GMT 03/06/2011
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Landscape - From The Tea-rooms Of Mars… To The Hell-holes Of Uranus
Dry computer club Futurists, upon hitting implausible chart paydirt.
6:00 AM GMT 17/05/2011
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-
Causa Sui - Summer Sessions Vol 1-3
Epic Danish jams, for when the neighbours get you down.
6:00 AM GMT 12/05/2011
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See also the fantastic "songs in the key of life" compilations compiled by Outsider Music connoseur Irwin Chusid. They've got stuff from Beefheart, the Shaggs, Daniel Johnson as well as more obscure acts. Like nothing you've ever heard before!
Posted by Earhorn at 11:22 AM GMT 18/12/2008 Report Abuse
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Clearly I didn't mean "life" ! "Songs in the Key of Z"
Posted by Anonymous at 11:24 AM GMT 18/12/2008 Report Abuse
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The problem with most outsider music is that it was discovered decades ago. Where's the next big thing? We need to encourage as much as possible. And that's why "MUSIC FOR MUSICIANS OR: How to make a 60-minute album in less than 8 hours for about $200" is so important.
Posted by Frank at 9:44 PM GMT 18/12/2008 Report Abuse
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This is a great compilation. 'Little Rug Bug' by Rodd Keith is wonderful and moving,you also get the legendary 'Blind Man's Penis' -lyrics written by John Trubee,What more could you ask for?!
Any chance of MOJO doing a piece on Rodd Keith? His story is fascinating.
Posted by tincanpot at 5:53 AM GMT 23/12/2008 Report Abuse
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